Prayer at the Memorial Service for Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Johannesburg, 10 December 2013

Let us pray.

Masithandaze.

Are rapeleng.

Laat ons bid.


Creator God, Lord of Life and Love

You hold the whole universe in your hands and

Yet you also number the hairs on all our heads

You know the fates of the nations, and

The hopes and fears of each individual.


On this day of Madiba’s memorial service

We pray for the peace of the world –

for peace without and for peace within.


Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace,

May your Shalom touch every place of conflict, division, brokenness or fear,

May it fill our communities, families and lives.


From the horrors and turmoil of nations in conflict,

to the fractured relationships and

violence of too many homes, bring your reconciling love.


We pray for South Africa in particular on this Memorial Day.

Help us to draw on the best lessons of our past and

build on the firm foundations, that by your grace, Madiba laid for us.


Give us courage to hold fast to his values, to follow the example of his praxis and to share them with the world.


We lift our hearts, with gratitude for your loving care that you have called Madiba home, to his eternal post, where pain and suffering are no more.


We commend his soul to your merciful keeping and his family to your continuous love,


As we pray:

Go forth, revolutionary and loving soul, on your journey out of this world, in the name of God, who created you, suffered with you and liberated you.

Go home Madiba, you have selflessly done all that is good, noble and honourable for God’s people.

We will continue where you have left off, the Lord being our helper.

We now turn to you, Lord, in this hour of darkness, sadness, pain and death, in tears and mourning,

We wail, yet we believe that you will console us, that you will give us the strength to hold in our hearts and minds, and the courage to enact in our lives, the values Madiba fought and stood for.

We turn to you, Lord, and entrust Madiba‘s soul to your eternal rest and loving arms as he re-joins the Madiba clan, his comrades and all the faithful departed.

We pray particularly for his closest and dearest, for Ma Graça Machel, for his children, grandchildren and all his relatives; may you surround them with your loving arms, your fatherly embrace and comfort.

At this dark time of mourning, at this perfect time when you have called him to rest and a perfect end, accept his soul and number him among the company of the redeemed in Heaven.

Console and comfort his family, South Africa, Africa and the world.

May his long walk to freedom be enjoyed and realised in our time by all of us.

MAY HE REST IN PEACE AND RISE IN GLORY!

Amen

+Thabo Cape Town

Blogging from Busan - Of Anglicans, Aids, Pamphlets and Pickets at the WCC

At the World Council of Churches assembly in Korea today, we spent more time in a “business plenary”, “ecumenical conversations” and then a “theme plenary” as well as in regional groups. (See an explanation of the programme here>>)

Prior to these, I had the opportunity to meet privately with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi with the head of UNAIDS, Mr Michel Sidibé.

We spoke of the need to address as an Anglican Communion some of the systemic issues that still cause new HIV infections when in general the rate is dropping. Inequality has robbed many of a voice in calling for access to treatment and the church is urged to speak up urgently on this. The concern is that epicentre of this crisis has shifted into stable heterosexual relationships and this is of great concern, says Mr Sidibé. We three archbishops agreed to collaborate with UNAIDS, particularly around the forthcoming 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence and on AIDS Day. We noted the growing marginalization of some groups, especially in homophobic countries, and how this may indirectly spread infection as people hide both their sexuality and their HIV status.

In the theme plenary, we listened to the church address its impact or lack thereof in the mission field. We heard of the isolation and pain of the Coptic Christians in Alexandria and of the need to come alongside them in this difficult time.

In our ecumenical plenary, I chose the the justice and peace session and was again struck by the notion of “just peace” and the reminder that "the strength of the powerful depends on the obedience and compliance of its citizens..." Citizens do have the capacity to use non-violent means to change a violent order, to give voice to the voiceless and accomplish reconciliation. The session enabled us to explore this notion of just peace in a little more depth.

Jape Heath, a priest from our province now working in Sweden, who is both HIV positive and in a same-sex relationship, is open these issues and shared with the Archbishop of Canterbury and me the work of INERELA+ – an organisation now comprising thousands of immuno-compromised religious leaders who are ready to share their redemptive stories on living with the HI Virus.

We ended with an Africa group regional meeting, sharing issues as they affected the continent and recommending candidates for election to the Central Committee of the WCC. I was so proud of how our continent, without compromising the process, performed in reflecting a gender balance in nominations. Pray for the candidates as nominations close.

Let me end with what we started with after morning prayer. We had Chung Hongwon, prime minister of South Korea address us and bring greetings. He spoke passionately and demonstrated the importance of church-state relations. Please pray for the ecumenical witness in our country. Today at the regional meeting, I was able to see colleagues from our country's ecumenical bodies and could at least "praat”, “khuluma” and “buwa” our country's languages. There are of course some who, as is customary at these gatherings, are picketing us, putting pamphlets in our faces because they like neither the conference theme nor the WCC. Pray for us all.

God bless
+ Thabo

PHOTO: Dr Wedad Abbas Tawfik from Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria speaking at the WCC assembly in Busan.

Blogging from Busan - Day One of the WCC Assembly in Korea

DAY ONE: After a long journey, we arrived at BUSAN in South Korea for the opening of the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) on Wednesday.

Other South Africans from ACSA include Bishop Jo Seoka of Pretoria, Canon Nangula Kathindi of Namibia, Mrs Lungi Makgoba and Professor Bev Haddad of the University of KwaZulu/Natal, all attending in various capacities.

We had a good "reunion" with other bishops and Primates from the Anglican Communion, as well as some clergy and laity, but the auditorium was too full to accommodate everyone for the opening plenary so we had to sit in the worship space and follow proceedings on a screen.

Jet-lagged and finding screens too impersonal, we decided to go to the conference's market place, where we were struck by many of the exhibitions - but chiefly by the ecumenical work which is being done for the disabled. I don't think that is an aspect of ministry which we as a province have spent much thought on, or are doing much about.

Then to the first business of the assembly, when we listened to the general secretary, the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the moderator of the Central Committee, the Rev. Dr Walter Altmann, and other programme directors present their reports or move for their reception.

What stuck out for me was the call by most for "Just Peace". The reports gave a synopsis of the work of the past seven years and the vision for the next under the assembly theme of “God of life, lead us to justice and peace.”

Parishioners at home should know of the longing by South Korea in particular for reunification with North Korea so that lasting peace is attained.

One objective of choosing Korea for the venue of the assembly was to support this longing, and to amplify the voices of the Christian minority to the majority, hopefully contributing to the achievement one day of lasting peace with justice.

God bless you,

+Thabo

THE PHOTO ABOVE shows a dramatic performance which narrated a history of the national and Christian mission in Korea.

To the Laos - To the People of God, May 2012

Dear People of God

This year is my fifth as Archbishop of Cape Town, and also sees the tenth anniversary of my consecration. All who are able are invited to share in celebrating this decade at a special service in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, at noon on 26 May!

Since becoming Metropolitan, I have continually been struck by the wonderful sense of common life shared across the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and the great distances between us – not just in geography, but in some of the human realities that we experience. I pray we can sustain this sense of togetherness by sharing news from around our church and praying for one another. St Paul wrote in his first letter to the Thessalonians, ‘We always give thanks to God for all of you, and mention you in our prayers …’ (1 Thess 1:2). Let us bear each other up in the same way!

A particularly urgent and important prayer request come from Bishop Adam Taaso, who asks for our intercessions for Lesotho’s elections on 26 May. In recent weeks, there has been a lot of tension within and between different parties, with outbreaks of violence, even murder. The churches are working with others to promote peaceful, free elections, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu – himself Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 to 1978 – visited at the end of April. He appealed for an end to violence, and invited all the political parties to sign a pledge to pursue peaceful elections and to respect the results in due course. Please pray that these promises may be kept.

Another topic for prayer is the diocesan synods of Namibia and Port Elizabeth, on 24-26 May. May they be times of fellowship, planning and renewing diocesan vision and mission, and also of commitment to mutual accountability in the things of God.

Our most distant Diocese is the mid-Atlantic Island of St Helena. Last month Bishop Richard Fenwick and his wife Jane spent a morning at Bishopscourt. They were on their way to the UK, for well-earned holiday, as well as a busy programme of visits to congregations and others who support the Diocese. Jane – whose birthday it was – showed us a wonderful slide show of Island life, and Bishop Richard spoke about the church’s priorities. Work is due to begin soon on St Helena’s first airport, and this will mean major changes to nearly every aspect of Island life. Building work will bring a large influx of workers, and further challenges will follow when it opens, making travel and tourism to and from St Helena far easier. Please keep ‘the Saints’ in your prayers.

One of the joys of travelling around the Province and meeting Anglicans is that again and again I feel my heart lifting, as we recognise one another not only as brothers and sisters in Christ, but as sharing something very special within the family of ACSA. It is a precious, holy, gift, to know that we belong together, held in the embrace of God’s steadfast love. It is as if well-springs of joyful encouragement overflow when we meet – an encouragement that strengthens and inspires us, whatever challenges we face.

Yet meeting together over such big distances is difficult and expensive. This is why Provincial Synod is held every three years, with Provincial Standing Committee in intervening years; and though all Dioceses are represented, only relatively few people participate. So we must ensure ACSA ‘meets’ in other, more comprehensive, ways, and nurture our fellowship in Christ, and partnership in the gospel. These letters are one way of contributing to this goal. Social media can also help, like my Facebook page (‘Archbishop Thabo Makgoba’) and blog (http://archbishop.anglicanchurchsa.org) and there are other FB pages for Provincial organisations, as well as Dioceses, Parishes and other groups. Please use what you can, and, whatever else, do pray!

But while all these are great for sharing news, they are not so good for in-depth reflection or debate. So let me first commend Southern Anglican: through its pages ACSA members can offer views on important questions that face the church, or face us as Christians engaging with the world around. Please do take the initiative to contact to the editor, Revd Loraine Tulleken, offering pieces for publication. This is our magazine, open to all, so let’s make it work by addressing what matters to us most, in its pages.

Second, I invite you all to join me at the Anglicans Ablaze Conference, ‘A Generation Rising Up’, from 3 to 6 October, in Johannesburg. With the backing of the Synod of Bishops, and supported by Growing the Church, this conference will help us celebrate together and explore more deeply our Provincial Vision – that we are ‘Anglicans who ACT: Anchored in the love of Christ, Committed to God’s mission, Transformed by the Holy Spirit’. For more information, contact GtC on office@growingthechurch.org.za or 021 712 0408, or see www.anglicansablaze.org. I look forward to meeting many of you there. If you cannot come in person, please ‘be present’ by praying. And whether you can come or not, I encourage your parish to follow the 6-week sermon series, with material for Bible studies, on the Vision and Mission Statement. Download this at www.growingthechurch.org.za/events.aspx.

Last month Lungi and I and our daughter Pabi were in London, where I preached at St Martin in the Fields at a service celebrating the silver wedding of Pabi’s godmother, Tricia Sibbons and her husband Douglas Board. We got to know Tricia when she was a warden at St Martins, which has historic links with St Marys’ in the City Cathedral, Johannesburg, where I was curate. Tricia was the first Director of the Trevor Huddleston Memorial Centre, and now chairs its Board. She and Douglas arranged for me to address a group of London lawyers and business people, challenging them not just to help such initiatives by donations, but to use their influence to change the politico-economic systems that continue to place politics and profits before people and planet.

I was able to pursue the same argument a fortnight later at the World Economic Forum Africa Summit in Addis Ababa, where I was a panel speaker in sessions on ‘Fostering Political Stability’ and ‘The Future Role of Civil Society’. Please keep praying that such opportunities continue to arise for me to make the voice of the church heard, promoting gospel values, moral living, and priorities that reflect God’s justice, among those who shape how our world is run. They need to hear the clear message that the current world order creates poverty, damages the planet, and puts all our futures in jeopardy. I have asked Prof Gerald West to compile Bible studies for 2013 to help us reflect theologically on economics. I am also working to promote initiatives that particularly help tackle youth unemployment – I shall say more about these next month.

Scripture says, ‘Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another … ’ (Heb 10:24-5). Let us work hard at doing this, in person, and in prayer.

Yours in the Service of Christ,

+Thabo Cape Town

Our Church and Canon Law

This is the edited version of some reflections shared on 28 February 2012 with a group considering the re-launch of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa's Canon Law Society.

Thank you for coming today, to consider the re-launch of ACSA’s Canon Law Society. Let me offer a few reflections, from my own perspective.

I recently asked staff to put together a file of papers on the canon law issues that have crossed my desk since becoming Archbishop barely 4 years ago. The file, I have to say, is far too fat! And it seems to me that there are two reasons that contribute to this.

The first is that there is not enough awareness of how and where to apply and implement canon law – and there is a particular need for Bishops to be better equipped in this area. So my first challenge to a new Society, to you, would be to compile a sort of ‘Dummies’ Guide to Canon Law’ – a user-friendly manual. Particularly helpful would be some guidelines that say ‘If situation X arises, do Y’, where this is appropriate.

But the second issue we face is the need for a right understanding of when to resort to canonically based actions. As someone has said, the Canons do not replace the Bible! And scripture is clear. While Jesus came to fulfil the law, he was against legalism. St Paul also writes about avoiding – and avoiding provoking – legislative procedures, especially in secular courts, wherever possible. Both put the emphasis on relationships and actions that are rooted in, unearth, and birth, love and compassion.

In equipping Bishops and church leaders, all should know how to respect and uphold canon law and the regulations of the church, in all forms. But, more importantly, they must be chief pastors, and understand how our first obligation is always to exhaust the pastoral routes open to us.

At Morning Prayer today, we read the 23rd Psalm, and I was reminded again of the calling, particularly to Bishops, to shepherd our sheep as Christ does his flock. Legal actions should, generally speaking, always be the last resort. And the legal advice that comes to us should share this same perspective. The laws of love and grace are our priority.

Those giving legal advice should not be afraid to challenge Bishops! We need this. We need to be told if we are thinking of heading in the wrong direction – in the procedures to which we look, and in their appropriate application. If you don’t tell us clearly, you are not helping!

There is another angle to this, specifically in relation to clergy ‘vocation’ questions. I know that the relationship between Bishops and clergy as not one of direct employment remains where we stand in terms of case law. But this is no excuse whatsoever for Bishops to treat clergy poorly. The church should behave towards its clergy better than the best practices of any employment code. She should live the biblical values of what it is to be human and created in the image of God, as well as demonstrate the wider constitutional context within which she serves.

I know that in the past rectors treated curates, and bishops treated clergy, often more than high-handedly. But we need to wake up, and acknowledge that this was wrong; and that it is completely unacceptable to perpetuate either such attitudes or such practices today.

Nor can we ignore the changed legal context, which has rebalanced working relationships, providing workers with far fuller rights than in the bad old days. In my view, then, vocational and employment matters are also first a moral and then a legal question. There is no justification for Church practices to be anything less than the best we see in the world around. Therefore, on moral grounds at least as much as legal grounds, I hope that we resort to this area of law as little as possible.

I also hope that through regularising clergy licensing across dioceses, we will also be able to avoid some of the recent sorry tales – including where (as in the case of Fr Mbombo and the Diocese of the Highveld) secular courts have told us that we are failing in our responsibilities, including at the highest level, through our appeals system.

There are some other reflections I want to mention briefly.

The first is this, that all of us need to be aware of the high, high, cost of litigation. It is scandalous that we have to spend such vast sums, which ought to be directed towards the mission and ministry of the church. Indeed, I would put it stronger – we are depriving the church of these sums, which were given precisely for mission and ministry. It is appalling stewardship. People, on whatever side of whatever argument, need to know this. (For example, ensuring the consecration of the Bishop of Mbashe in the face of court challenges cost ACSA a lot of money. And there are other examples I could mention.)

Arising from this is the thought that we need to do better in ensuring matters of canon law are included in training clergy. I know some dioceses are now including this within Anglican Studies modules, but we need to do this more widely. This not only means College of the Transfiguration (COTT), but – and perhaps especially – with those who follow more general courses that are not taught within an Anglican framework. Perhaps you might be able to help with producing training materials.

So, as is clear, there is plenty on the canon law plate for you to get your teeth into! May God bless your discussions – so that you, and your work, may be a blessing to God’s church and God’s people, in our ministry and mission to God’s world. Thank you.

Anglicans in Mission - Here am I, Lord, Send me!

A Sermon preached at St Paul's, Durban, on 13 November 2011, on the theme 'Anglicans in Mission: Here am I, Lord, Send me!'

Isaiah 6:1-8; Colossians 2:6-7; John 20:19-23

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear people of God of St Paul’s, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear Fellow Bishops – Bishop Reuben, Bishop Tsietsi and Bishop Nkosinathi – let me say again what a great joy it is to share in this morning’s celebration with you. Archdeacon May, I am particularly grateful to you, and to all those who have worked with you on today’s service – everyone involved in preparation, and everyone participating, and all those who work so very hard behind the scenes. Thank you for your ministry.

My theme is ‘Anglicans in Mission: Here am I, send me!’ How often have we heard that rousing passage as Isaiah tells us how God called him to be a prophet. How often do we feel our own hearts and souls rise within, yearning to echo Isaiah’s words, ‘Here am I, send me Lord!’ What we so often fail to do, however, is to read the verses that follow immediately after ‘Here am I, send me Lord’.

The Lord answer’s Isaiah’s cry, and I quote those verses ‘Go, and say to the people, “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; you keep looking, but you do not understand”.’ From the word go, Isaiah discovers that his calling is not going to be an easy one. Neither rulers nor people will listen to his warnings of judgement – and so that judgement will come, as he warns, through exile. Only beyond exile lies the promise of the fuller and greater redemption, which Isaiah did not live to see.

And yet Isaiah words have lived on – the living word of God, spoken through Isaiah, has not returned empty, but instead (as we read in Isaiah chapter 55) ‘the living word of God accomplishes that which God had hoped for, and succeeds in the things for which God sent it’. The words of Isaiah continue to bear fruit among us today, as so many of us can attest, in terms of the impact that this, and other passages, have in our lives. And yet, Isaiah was not to know this.

Last night, at Evening Prayer we read the verses where Jesus tells his disciples, ‘If you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their live for my sake will find it’ (Mt 16:24-5). And of course, Jesus himself, sent by the Father, was, as St Paul writes to the Philippians, ‘obedient even to a point of death – even death on a cross’ (Phil 2:8).

And So, dear friends, responding to God’s call, saying to God ‘Here am I’ should not to be taken lightly. God rarely takes us where we expect him to lead us. Often our calling comes at a great personal cost. And God’s idea of what constitutes success and reward, as we see from the life of Isaiah, and from the life of Jesus, from the life of St Paul, is different to our contemporary society. It doesn’t say I have joined the church or I have joined the struggle to be rich. We don’t say ‘Here am I, send me God’, if our ambition is to amass wealth!

What then, some people may ask, does it mean to say ‘Yes’ to God’s call – to respond to Jesus who says ‘follow me’, and then, all too often, leads us to places outside our comfort zone. We follow, because, in a way probably far less spectacular than Isaiah, we have nonetheless somehow encountered something of the living God. We have felt our lives touched by Jesus who is King of kings and Lord of lords; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; that second eternal person of the Trinity, who was born in a stable, and who died on the cross for us. We respond by saying ‘Yes, God, here we are’ because we have met Him; and we have recognised our need of him, of his salvation and redemption, in all our failings and in all our human weaknesses. We say Yes to God because we know that we cannot live without God.

When many of Jesus’ followers turned away, once he began to teach that discipleship is costly, you will recall that he even asked his disciples ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ We stay because we are those whose hearts echo the words of St Peter, ‘Lord, if we go away, to whom else we could go? Lord you have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God’ (Jn 6:66-9). We respond to God because we have grasped the fact that, as it says in today’s Gospel, that, as the Father sent Jesus, and so he sends us. And dear friends this for me is mind boggling, that this all-powerful God shares his mission of love and forgiveness, of reconciliation and redemption, to his world, through you and I, warts and all. God chooses to work through you and me, it remains mind boggling.

This is the wonder of it all, that we can make a difference, we can make God’s difference in responding to his call with faithful obedience and we can find that we can make God’s difference; in responding to his call with faithful obedience we will find that the things we say and do make a difference to the world – a difference that might last for centuries, a difference that may have eternal significance.

And if we think of it this way, what better calling could there be? What could be more successful, than changing the course of history, and leaving a mark that matters even in the heavenly realm!

This is the basis for all ministry, for all mission. And I rather suspect that I am today in many ways clearly talking and ‘preaching to the converted’. For I know that over the decades, this particular parish of St Paul’s, through individuals, as a congregation, and in its leaders, has not been afraid to answer the costly call of God’s sending. This parish has followed Christ in ways that have sometimes taken you outside the comfort zones of our churches – but you have been a beacon to many.

And in giving yourselves to the ministry of the Lord, you have put your hands deep into your pockets and you have given with great generosity to the work of the Diocese and to the work of the Province. You have been a great encouragement to many – and let me today, publicly, offer my thanks on behalf of the Province to you, and to the rest of this Diocese. The Diocese of Natal, you may not know, remains the highest giver of any Diocese within the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. You continue to support the Diocese of Niassa, you continue to support the College of the Transfiguration (our only Anglican residential college), and you continue to support the Anglican House of Studies – to name but three of the projects that you assist. And I am sure that you are making a godly difference by saying ‘here we are’ through those three examples I have mentioned.

You have lent your resources in other ways too – in people. This particular parish has nurtured many – laity and clergy who have served here, of which there are a number present today! – who have then gone on to serve the church in more demanding positions. I know that the Dean was here also. Thank you, for building up such treasures, and thank you for being able to let them go.

And human resources have been shared in other ways. This Diocese has been ahead of the curve in many areas of management and good governance, and has brought these skills to play within our Province. For example, though Bishop Rubin and Robin Green often ask the most difficult of questions at Provincial Finance Committee, and criticise poor practice without holding back; their contribution has made a vital difference, which both Archbishop Njongo and I have come to value, even as it has stretched us to do better! And for that we are grateful, Bishop Rubin.

And this Diocese – and Bishop Rubin in particular – have not only helped in the formal life of our Province; but also often behind the scenes and outside legal structures, for example, walking with Dioceses that are going through difficult times. So, Thank you – thank you, thank you, particularly to Bishop Rubin and thank you to Rose for allowing Bishop Rubin to exercise that ministry and do what he has done – thank you for all you have done, and for all you continue to do, offering yourselves unreservedly in the service of the Church, despite the personal cost and pains you have suffered. We thank you both, from the bottom of our hearts.

As you all know, gratitude is the heart of mission. Gratitude is in the heart of saying, ‘Here am I Lord, send me’. Today it is my great privilege to express gratitude to you at St Paul’s, and to so many associated with you, and to the wider Diocese, and to your Bishops, for all you do.

Yet gratitude is at the heart of mission in another very profound way. For God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit has done ‘everything’ for us. He has created, he has redeemed, he has sustained, every moment of our very being – how could we not be grateful and respond to the call ‘Whom shall I send?’ And how could we do otherwise, than to share our resources with the overflowing love which we have generously received from God?

The name of doing this, the sharing of the overflowing love is called ‘mission’. People of God are inevitably people of mission – mission is nothing else but a state of being, a state of living responsibly to all that we have received from God; a state of allowing his love to pour through us; of letting ourselves become the people God calls us to be – called and sent in whatever way God chooses.

And I think it is fair to say that doing of mission comes from being. We do mission because it flows from our being. For, if, as we heard in our second lesson, we ‘have received Jesus Christ the Lord’, and he continues to live in our lives, how could we do anything else? Jesus’ whole live was lived in mission. He said ‘I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me’ (Jn 6:38). We too, must be God’s sent people.

God has sent us in many ways – for God is God of mission. Indeed, Mission has been described, in the words of the National Council of Churches of Australia, and I quote, as ‘the creating, reconciling and transforming act of God, which flows from the community of love in Trinity, which is made known to all humanity in the person of Jesus Christ, which is entrusted to the faithful and which is witnessed by the people of God, in the power of the Spirit, and it is a foretaste, of the reign of God here on earth.’

That’s quite a mouthful! But all we need to know about mission is signposted here – first it is about the character of God, the God who is Trinity, the God who is made known in Jesus Christ. And second, that mission is entrusted in us – we are empowered by God’s Spirit, so that we can go and act in God’s world in his words and action, and show others that God reigns. In the conduct of mission, we know that the Anglican Communion has identified what we call ‘Five Marks of Mission’. I invite you to use the internet to learn what all those five marks of mission are all about, and be guided by them.

As you seek to proclaim the good news of Christ, as you teach, as you baptise, as you respond to the needs of this world, as you transform unjust structures, as you respect Gods creation, may God indeed help you to respond in whatever way you feel God is calling you. But my plea is this: as you say ‘Here am I, send me’, may God also help you to heal our land, but to always begin with yourself; to heal our nation but always to begin with our communities; to make you compassionate, to make you caring and to make you concerned. And in all this, let yourself be healed, even as you seek to heal others and to make your community caring and compassionate.

This list could go on and on, because mission and being sent are my great passion and so I could keep you here for the next 3 days! But I have realised that I have to go back to Cape Town and so I have a plane to catch. But in whatever way you feel that God is calling you, whether you are a student, a priest, a bishop, a housewife or househusband, a business person … just let God open his love to you, pour his grace on you, dwell in you and continue to send you, as you say ‘Lord here am I, send me – I am prepared to labour for you, I am prepared to make your difference so that this world may actually encounter you as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’

As I conclude I want to re echo the words of Jesus. He still says to me and to you, ‘As the Father has sent me so I send you’; and to those who respond he says ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ In other words, he will never send you alone, he will always empower you. Therefore, let us be open to God as once again he asks us, ‘Whom shall I send, who will go for us?’ Let us confidently say, ‘Here we are God, send us.’

My prayer is, may it be so. Amen

150 years of Anglican Worship in the Constantia Valley

The following sermon was preached at Christ Church Constantia on 6 March 2011. During the service, the Wingerdstok Cross - made of old vines donated by the Klein Constantia farm, fixed to a hessian covered board by wire worked into a central crown of thorns - was blessed.

1 Kings 8:22-30; 1 Peter 2:4-9; Matthew 21:12-16

May I speak in the name of God, the master builder, who calls us to be his living stones.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear people of God of Christ Church Constantia, let me say again what a delight it is to be with you as you celebrate 150 years of Anglican worship and witness in the Constantia Valley. Thank you, Keith – and Gladys – for your warm welcome; thank you churchwardens; thank you to everyone involved in this service, and to all who have taken part in the wider celebrations that you have been enjoying. It is a real pleasure to be with you this morning!

When I first came to Cape Town, one of the great challenges on a Sunday morning was finding my way to wherever I was due to preach. Some of the churches of our Diocese are not easy to locate. But that is not the case here – everyone knows of ‘The Stone Church’ on Constantia Main Road: this beautiful building of Table Mountain sandstone.

Just a week ago, I was looking at very different stones – the limestone of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Temple where Jesus cast out the money-changers. No doubt St Peter was with him there on that day – and on many other occasions. Perhaps you remember the account in St Luke’s gospel, where the disciples were marvelling at the amazing rebuilding of the Temple carried out by Herod the Great, twenty years before Jesus’ birth. Jesus warned them not to put their trust in mere buildings, no matter how impressive, telling them that not one stone would be left standing.

Well, in 70AD, the Romans destroyed the Temple, almost completely. Today, only the lowest levels of Temple date from the time of Jesus – and a little more remains at the corners. The foundation stones of the Temple are vast – many are more than forty feet – twelve metres – long. Most weigh 70 tonnes or more, and the very heaviest is estimated at perhaps as much as 550 tonnes. At the corners, these huge stones are interlocked. They withstood the Temple’s destruction rather better than the rest of the building, and can be seen today, standing above the old foundations.

We don’t know whether St Peter wrote about Jesus as God’s cornerstone before or after this happened, but he certainly understood the way a good cornerstone strengthens the whole building. Nonetheless, pictures from New Zealand of the collapsed cathedral tower in Christchurch – where it was thought up to 22 had died but in fact, thank God, no bodies were found – remind us that, as Jesus said, we should not put our trust in stones, in bricks and mortar.

This is the message at the heart of our readings today. Solomon’s prayer declares that God cannot be contained, even in the holy of holies of the Jerusalem Temple. Rather, it is the place on which God looks with particular compassion; and the place in which, and towards which, people pray. In this way, the Temple is the focus of human life intersecting with the love of God, and his active presence with us.

And if anyone has any doubts about what this might mean in practice, well, they could do a lot worse than read through the wonderful commemorative book produced for your 150th anniversary. I was fascinated to read the story of Anglican worship here – through far more twists and turns of history than I had imagined. Not only did the apartheid government try to stop coloured people living and worshipping here – at one point, an earlier rector tried to make the white members of the parish go elsewhere!

But we are not really here today to mark the history of, first, a thatched chapel, and then this stone building. No, we are here to celebrate the living faith of Jesus Christ, vibrant among his people, over a century and a half. For it is the faithfulness of men and women, who held together, no matter what, which has withstood the buffeting of time, and kept this congregation, this worshipping community, alive – indeed, alive and thriving. So we pay tribute today to all those who have served here in the past: to clergy, of course, but perhaps rather more so to those families – and especially those coloured families – who have been at the heart of Christ Church life, over generations: families like the Adamses, the Williamses, the Pelstons, the Davidses, the Petersons, the Elys, and many more.

Our thanks are to you, and to your parents and grandparents before you. We know that your faithfulness came with great pain, at great cost. We also know that, without you, and without your commitment, we might not be here today – or we might be a very different church from the one which can produce such a broad and deep and rich Annual report as the one you shared at vestry this week. (You can tell I have been doing my homework, before coming here!)

Surely this is what it means to be living stones – creating amongst yourselves a focal point for people to encounter God, whatever the circumstances of their lives. We know that through Christ Church, people meet the living God, and find his love, his compassion, his strength, his comfort, his leading, his encouragement – even his judgement at times, in order to find his redemption, and his power to transform what is wrong and bring good out of evil.

The strength of the vast stones of the Temple in Jerusalem lies most of all not in their size and weight – but in the way they interlock. Where they were built together, they best withstood the Romans’ destructive efforts. The same is true of living stones. St Peter is not writing to individuals. He is writing to congregations, to Christian communities: let yourselves be built into a spiritual house – let yourselves be built together – to be a holy priesthood.

This is your calling, as the people of Christ Church, Constantia. God has chosen you. Yes, each of you individually he has called by name, as the prophet Isaiah says. But he has called you to belong to one another, so that together you can be his royal priesthood, his holy nation, God’s own people.

And he calls you together for a purpose, says St Peter: ‘in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’ We proclaim his might acts through our words, and our actions. This is the life of worship, witness and service to which we pledge ourselves at confirmation. This worship, witness and service are most effective when the whole congregation shares together. As St Paul puts it in his first letter to the Thessalonians, ‘Therefore, encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’

Today I say this also to you, ‘keep on encouraging one another, and building up each other, as indeed you are doing’:

• through morning and evening prayer and the prayer diary, the prayer chain and the fellowship groups;

• through community outreach and hampers and love-packs, and through the shop;

• through pastoral care givers and bereavement visitors and providing funeral teas;

• through the music and the flowers and the contribution of lay ministers and servers and readers and sidespeople;

• through the gardening group and the handyman team;

• through preparation for baptism, confirmation and marriage;

• through work with children and young people, as well as the seniors;

• through the wardens and parish council, the office and all the administrative work;

• through … well, the list goes on and on and on!

Now Keith, I know, is a construction engineer by training. He will no doubt tell you that a building doesn’t just need corner-stones. It needs bricks, it needs mortar, it needs plaster and roofing, plumbing and electrical work, it needs doors and windows, ceilings and floors, everything from huge joists to tiny screws. Thousands of different pieces must be fitted together like an unbelievably complicated jigsaw. But each piece is necessary, and must find its proper place.

And the same is true of us. We are all different. We all have different gifts, different aptitudes, different abilities, different expertise and experience. Yet God calls each of us to play our part. None of us is unimportant – all of us make a difference to God’s plans, God’s blue-print, for us. We make a difference by fitting in with God’s plans – and we also make a difference if we are fail to do so, perhaps because we are too hesitant, too timid.

But we should not be afraid, because God’s promise to us is that we matter, and even in small things, what we do counts, what we do matters – what we do has eternal significance. Our gospel reading reminded us of this. The praises of little children and babies can be more important in God’s great schemes than all the fancy words of religious leaders – now there’s a warning for you and me, Keith! So do not be afraid to let God use you as his living stone, and place you where he most wants you to be. And the promise of his Spirit is that he will help us to become the people he calls us to be.

Perhaps you might find another picture more helpful – the picture of the vine. ‘I am the true vine’ says Jesus, ‘Ek is die ware wingerdstok’ (Jn 15:1). He tells us to abide in him, and then, through his Spirit working within us, like the sap of the living vine, we will bear much fruit.

I must admit that when I first saw the Wingerdstok Cross, it almost took my breath away. It is so simple – yet it is so profound. The gnarled and twisted wood, the thorns, the nails, speak to us powerfully of the struggle of our own lives, and the struggle and pain of Christ on the cross. But they also speak of persistent life, irrepressible life, life that holds on and endures, through good times and bad, through fair weather and foul, through sun and rain, through cloud and storm.

This is the life that God assures for all of us, if only we abide in the true vine, if only we abide in Jesus – if only we are living stones, allowing ourselves to be built around the corners-stone that is Christ. For on the cross Jesus Christ has borne our pains, our suffering, our own sins, and the sins that have been perpetrated against us. He has suffered death so we can live; and so that we can share this same hope of life with others.

None of us know what the future will bring. Those people who first had a vision for an Anglican chapel in this valley – both white and coloured – none of them could have guessed what the next 150 years would bring. Sometimes life was easy. Sometimes life was more than tragic. But God is faithful and sees us through.

Today, we do not know what lies ahead. Certainly, there will be change. Keith will retire at the end of the year. But no-one needs worry, as long as Jesus is the cornerstone of our lives.

Dear people of God of Christ Church Constantia, my message today is very simple. Abide in Jesus. Abide in his love. Each of you, in your own heart – and all of you together, living in mutuality, caring for one another, allowing yourselves to be cared for; building one another up in love and faith, as God’s holy people.

Develop the habits of deepening prayer, and Bible study. Put your hand in his, and journey with him through your lives – as individuals, and as a community. Let him teach you, and lead you, into an ever deepening relationship with him. Let him use you, to build up the life of this congregation – a life of joyful praise and worship; and a life of faithful witness and dedicated service to the communities who are rooted in this valley.

For truly, ‘you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the might acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’

So be it. Amen and Amen.

Addressing Anglican Differences - Spirit and Culture at the Foot of the Cross

Press Release Issued on 10 June 2010

‘Jesus Christ is the standard for discerning the path between authentic cultural expression and flawed syncretism, between ensuring we do not quench the Spirit and yet properly testing what we believe may be the Spirit’s leading’ said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba. He was addressing the USPG Annual Conference in Swanwick, England, on 'Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans – and their Wider Implications’.

The Archbishop of Cape Town described how agreement about who Jesus is and the salvation he brings enabled Anglicans in Southern Africa to see Christ in one another and be held together by him, despite differences over human sexuality. ‘When we meet, we feel sharp pain and great distress, yet none of us feels called to turn to another and say “I no longer consider you a Christian, a member of the body of Christ – I am no longer in communion with you”,’ he said. Rather ‘sharing our pain has left us feeling more closely bound to one another – it is as if we see the marks of the living Christ, the suffering Christ, in one another and in our common life, as we await together the power of the resurrection within our painful circumstances.’

In his address, Dr Makgoba said it sometimes appeared that The Episcopal Church had not listened sufficiently to the rest of the Communion, and acted in ways that communicated a lack of care about the consequences of their actions, especially in the Global South. The continuing dominance of debate on human sexuality ‘undermines our witness and dissipates energies that should be spent on mission’ he said. He also criticised others who had breached the ‘moratoria’, and everyone who failed to act with ‘gracious restraint’, and pointed to St Paul’s warning that not everything that is lawful is necessarily right to pursue.

The Archbishop urged greater effort in building mutual understanding across different contexts. ‘No one is without culture’ he said, and ‘all cultures must be open to both the judgement and hope which the gospel brings’. While some cultural practices might more easily be aligned with the gospel than others, all needed to be ‘baptized’ – dying to the assumptions of surrounding society and being reborn ‘within the perspectives of Jesus, his incarnation, cross and resurrection’. He pointed to the Spirit as the key to the translation of the gospel across different languages and cultures, with dunamis, power, rightly being understood not as just ‘brute force’ but the full range of ‘subtle gifts’ of Isaiah 11, including wisdom and discernment, which together enable the achievement of God’s purposes.

He therefore warned the Communion about unthinkingly relying overly on ‘parliamentary’ styles of debate which exacerbated polarisation around motions that encouraged ‘for and against’ stances, and explained, with extensive parallels from Scripture, how also using ‘appropriately baptised Indaba’ could help Anglicans ‘reconnect with more gospel-shaped approaches, that better reflect theologies of the work of the Spirit, and the body of Christ’.

Dr Makgoba commended the Continuing Indaba project, to assist better mutual listening within the Communion. ‘Surely we can never give up on each other – for God never gives up on any of us’ he said. ‘Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not.’

Below is the full text of the Archbishop’s Address on Mission Realities for Southern African Anglicans and their Wider Implications given on 10 June 2010 at the USPG Annual Conference, Witnessing to Christ Today, in Swanwick, England.

‘Spirit and Culture at the Foot of the Cross’

‘Witnessing to Christ Today’ is the theme of our conference. I want to begin by addressing this from the perspective of mission realities for Southern African Anglicans across our hugely diverse Province. In particular I want to consider the difficult issues of gospel, culture, and diversity. I shall then offer some reflections on the wider implications for the whole Anglican Communion, during which I shall say something about that troublesome word, indaba, which we seem to have inflicted upon the rest of the world!

The Call to Witness and Mission

Let me begin with words of Jesus which commission his followers to witness and to mission. As Luke’s gospel records, Jesus, at his ascension, tells his disciples to remain in Jerusalem to wait for the promise of the Father, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He then says to them ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:4,8).

Being witnesses to Jesus Christ is the essential heart of mission. Therefore we proclaim the eternal Second person of the Trinity incarnate at Bethlehem. He is the Son of God in a unique way: crucified for the sins of the world; risen and ascended; of whom St Peter said ‘there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).

Yet this is not only a Christo-centric, a Jesus-centred, undertaking. Both Father and Spirit are intimately involved. The Father sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, and it is this that makes witness and mission truly possible. The nature of this empowering for the tasks God gives us, is at the heart of what I want to talk about today.

Power in the Spirit

The Greek word for ‘power’ is dunamis, from which we derive the word dynamite. Yet it is not just about brute strength. Dunamis is about the ability to achieve. In ancient Greece this covered everything from politics to battle, from philosophical and spiritual realms to medicine. In the New Testament, dunamis conveys the power, the capacity, that enables the fulfilment of God’s purposes. The prophet Isaiah – in verses often used at confirmations and ordinations – speaks of the 7-fold Spirit, of wisdom and understanding (or discernment), of counsel and might, of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Is 11:2). Alongside ‘might’ we are given a great range of other abilities.

This should give us confidence and encouragement in our task of mission and witness. For God’s promise is to empower and equip us, not with brute force and naked power, but with far broader – and perhaps more subtle – gifts for proclaiming the gospel ‘to the ends of the earth’, and giving it true and authentic expression in ways that genuinely communicate, in whatever contexts we may find ourselves. It seems to me that the gifts of wisdom and understanding and discernment are of vital importance, first, in engaging with the various cultures of our world, and second, in holding on to one another as we do so.

Gospel and Culture

No-one, nowhere, is without culture. All of us find ourselves in cultures of one sort or another, and the gospel has a message of both judgement and hope for each one. It is only dependence on the Spirit’s guiding that will enable us to hold each up to the searing light of Christ, and to know what it is we may affirm, and what we must challenge.

Even where there is much to affirm, we will generally want to do this through a recontextualisation within the perspectives of life in Christ. Or, to put this in the language of Scripture, we will want to ensure it is transferred from the dominion of darkness, to the kingdom of light (Col 1:13), and that it is understood from within that perspective of light and life. What I mean is that we must make clear that we uphold what is good and godly, for reasons that are good and godly. Often we may not want to affirm the assumptions and motives behind practices of contemporary societies, even though we may support the practices themselves.

It can be helpful to speak of ‘baptizing culture’. In doing so, we recollect that baptism means being united with Christ through dying to the old life and being reborn in him. So even where our faith finds expression in ways that align with surrounding cultures, we expect there to be a radical dying to the underlying assumptions of that culture and a rebirth into new life where Jesus, and Christ-likeness, reign.

I find baptism a helpful touchstone as I try to discern what the Spirit is saying to the cultures in which I find myself pursuing God’s mission. And, in Southern Africa, I certainly find myself in a lot of cultures! South Africa alone has 11 official languages, each with varying cultures, alongside myriad other indigenous and immigrant communities. We also have vast socio-economic diversity that increasingly transcends differences of race: from opulent suburbs to impoverished shanty towns; from wealthy traditional rural leaders to near-destitute peasant farmers. And we are still wrestling with the transition to a multicultural, pluralist, democracy.

Our Province also includes Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland – from ancient kingdoms to new democracies (some, post-civil war). Among them are some of the worlds highest child mortality rates and lowest life expectancies (whether from HIV and AIDS or malaria). We also have two of the most remote inhabited islands on the planet – St Helena and Tristan da Cunha.

We are in many ways a global microcosm. How we heed God’s call to mission and witness, appropriately expressed across such a breadth of people and circumstances, while still holding together, certainly requires all the wisdom, understanding and discernment that the Holy Spirit offers us! And questions of gospel and culture are often where this is most acutely felt.

I was conscious of this last month, when I was in the Diocese of Zululand for the 140th anniversary of their foundation. This was, of course, by Victorian English gentlemen, operating in a colonialist context; and – as you mentioned in your pastoral letter last week, Bishop Katharine – colonial missionary expansion tended to be ignorant and insensitive in imposing its own uniform standards and practices on the cultures it encountered. But there is hope! Zululand was the first Southern African Diocese to have a black diocesan Bishop – whose name, appropriately enough, was Alphaeus Zulu. That was in 1960. Our current Bishop is of Italian descent, married a Zulu lady, and speaks fluent isiZulu. Well, this is perhaps a rather radical way of combing European and African heritages! Nonetheless we find there are still many areas where practices rooted in the English Victorian church come up against African tradition, and knowing how we should respond is not always easy.

Gospel, Culture and Marriage

Let me take the example of marriage and family life. This can be one of the most central, and problematic, areas within parish ministry and mission. We may think we know what we mean by marriage, but the word embraces a huge range of practices. In Scripture we find everything from strategic tribal alliances to individuals falling in love at first sight; from Old Testament polygamy to the New Testament ideal of faithful lifelong monogamy. The church, of course, upholds faithful lifelong monogamy between a man and a woman. But the cultures and practices around this differ hugely within the communities of our Province.

I am a from the Bapedi people, and my wife is UMxhosa, and our extended families often have different views on how we ought to live! You can imagine that the church’s marriage preparation classes in different parts of our Province have to tackle very different questions, and all need to be held up to the light of the gospel. What is the appropriate influence of parents and wider families? What is our attitude to paying lobola or traditional dowry? Does the church’s teaching reflect the remarks with which St Paul, writing to the Ephesians, prefaces his comments on the roles of husbands and wives, ‘Submit to one another, out of reverence of Christ’ (Eph 5:22), or are we allowing Victorian patriarchal views to compound those of African cultures?

And what about our mission where polygamy is seen as a mark of a man’s success? South Africa’s current President is polygamous, as is the King of Swaziland, and non-heads of state like the Zulu king, and many of their subjects. South African legislation also recognises polygamous Muslim marriages. From 1888 to 1988 Lambeth Conferences concluded that a polygamist who wants to become Anglican must not marry further wives, but also must not put away current additional wives and children, because of the social deprivation they would suffer.

But other issues still arise. Should there be different treatment of subsequent wives as compared to first wives, or to women in monogamous marriages, or, indeed to unmarried mothers? Are we clear about our reasons? And are we ensuring we do not encourage communities to stigmatise children who, through no fault of their own, are born to parents who don’t fit into tidy categories of marriage – particularly the categories of the Victorians!

These issues can become very stark, and the source of longstanding disputes within parishes! We must respond in ways that not only provide ‘answers’, but, more importantly, help individuals and communities to grow in knowledge and love of God; in maturity of faith; and in sharing this faith, this godly love, with others.

We must sit with Scripture before us. We must bring to bear all that we have learnt from two millennia of tradition, the history of God at work among his people and in his church. And – being Anglicans, and wedded to the primacy of Scripture, interpreted through tradition and reason! – we must then use all the skills that reasoning offers. This is the reasoning of the wisdom, understanding, discernment by which the Holy Spirit helps us find Christ-shaped, redemptive and life-giving answers. These answers may appear different on the surface, but on a deeper level, they will be coherent with each other and with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the vital point – Jesus Christ is the standard for discerning the path between authentic cultural expression and flawed syncretism; between ensuring we do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), and yet nonetheless properly testing what we believe may be the Spirit’s leading. As St John writes in his first letter, we recognise the Spirit in the confession of Jesus Christ incarnate (1 Jn 4:1-2). Orthodox Christology, orthodox life in the Spirit, and orthodox praxis, all go together, whatever the cultures we find ourselves in – and our ability to recognise this in one another is what holds us together in our different expressions of gospel truth.

This is a profound truth. It is fundamental in helping us discern between acceptable diversity, and unacceptable deviation. It is what helps us in our vocation to ‘make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ when we wrestle with the really difficult questions (Eph 4:3).

So let me know turn to the ‘really difficult question’ of the Anglican Communion – our differences over human sexuality and how we handle them.

An Anglican Microcosm

Southern Africa is not only a global microcosm in socio-economic, political and geographical terms. Our Province is also something of a microcosm of the Anglican Communion. Alongside huge diversities in race, language and culture, we are high church and low church; those who call themselves Anglo-Catholics and ‘Afro-Catholics’ and Evangelicals; and those whose passion is Christ’s ‘good news for the poor’ pursued through political and social justice alongside evangelistic outreach.

While geographically, and in other ways besides, we are part of the Global South, that is not the whole story. We do take our membership of the Global South very seriously, and fully share the mission priorities identified in April’s Fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter. We face the same concerns over poverty, hunger and sickness, and the breadth of human consequences of injustice and failure in our economic systems. We too are challenged by crime, violence, corruption, and the weaknesses – even instabilities – of our political life; and by the problems and threats of natural disasters, climate change and ecological fragility. Alongside the rest of the Global South, we too are committed to prioritising the pastoral needs of the laity, especially professionals, women and young people, and resourcing them for witnessing to our faith, as so many do, at the cutting edges of mission.

But we are not typical of the Global South. We also have many congregations that are wealthy and westernised, people who are much more typical of the Global North – and, let me say also, with all the breadth of churchmanship that is found in the North!

Nonetheless, we still hold together – and are managing to do so over human sexuality.

It is well-known that within our Province, and within our Synod of Bishops itself, one can find pretty much the whole range of views on human sexuality that are found within the global Anglican family. This ranges from seeing Mary Glasspool’s longstanding lesbian relationship as no impediment to her suitability for consecration, through to membership of the Fellowship of Confession Anglicans.

This is a live issue within our Province also, since South Africa now allows for civil partnerships between people of the same gender. In response, and though we are by no means of a single mind, we continue to affirm that the marriage of Christians is between a man and a woman, and that clergy who are not married should be celibate; and we do not allow clergy to officiate at civil unions or to bless them.

We are also considering pastoral guidelines for the consequences and questions that civil partnerships raise for ministry within our parishes. Do we welcome people in such partnerships in our congregations? Should their children attend Sunday School? What if they seek baptism for their children? What if those children in their teens seek baptism and confirmation for themselves? And what do we say to the parents of those who enter civil unions, who may be overwhelmed by confusion and conflicting emotions?

These questions also prompt us to think more deeply about the essence of marriage. It is not solely the legitimating of genital acts, but sometimes our discussions of polygamy and of same sex relationships seem to reduce it to little more than this. Therefore all this is no light or easy matter to us.

When we meet – as, for example, the Bishops do twice yearly – we feel sharp, sharp, pains and great distress when, as inevitably is the case, we are called to consider developments around these issues. But we are united in this: that none of us feels called to turn to another and say ‘I no longer consider you a Christian, a brother in Christ, a member of the body of Christ’. None of us says ‘I am no longer in communion with you.’

The sharing of our pain has in fact left us feeling more closely bound to one another. Reflecting on this has brought me to conclude that, it is as if we see the marks of the living Christ, who is also the suffering Christ, in one another and in our common life, as we await together the power of the resurrection within our painful circumstances.

Now, it is true that in the past, the Church in Southern Africa, by the grace of God, held together against all odds, under the pressures of apartheid. To some degree, shared opposition to apartheid helped forge a common identity. Even so, it was a very hard won unity, since there was little agreement about how best to oppose apartheid: about sanctions or the armed struggle or army chaplains. But a shared enemy – and one now in the past – is not a reliable foundation for going forward together. Today we are having to revisit the question of common identity, vision and mission, expressed authentically in the diversity of our contexts. This we shall do at Provincial Synod in September.

Yet it is not skilful use of vision-building techniques that truly holds us together. Rather it is God at work among us, calling us together as the body of Christ, to share in mission, in witness, for the sake of God’s broken and hurting world.

Jesus Christ, his Crucifixion and Resurrection

Sometimes it seems to me that God does this by working through, rather than in spite of, our own brokenness and pain. In this we find two important messages for the world. First, the way God deals with us, his people, demonstrates how he desires to deal with the world around us. Second, our readiness – or otherwise – to receive his ministering to us, can also be a powerful testimony – for good or ill – to the on-looking world.

The heart of God’s ministering is through the Spirit making real to us our baptism: that is, our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. The question before the Anglican Communion is whether we really are prepared fully to participate in Christ’s death and resurrection in this way.

What this might mean was brought home to me vividly in April, which saw the twentieth anniversary of the letter-bombing of Fr Michael Lapsley SSM by the agents of the apartheid regime. Some of you may know his story. He lost one eye and both hands. To watch him preside at the Eucharist, holding the bread between articulated metal claws as he repeats Christ’s words ‘This is my body, broken for you’ is to be challenged to a deeper appreciation of the cross, and of its cost, and what it means to share in it, without which we cannot share in resurrection.

But resurrection comes. Fr Michael invited us to a service of thanksgiving: not only that his life was spared; but that out of the great evil perpetrated against him, God by his grace is bringing a far greater and more lasting good. For Fr Michael set up and runs the Institute for the Healing of Memories which conducts significant work among victims of violence and torture all around the world. As he says himself, this ‘is not to say that I will not always grieve what I’ve lost … Yet I believe I’ve gained through this experience. I realise that I can be more of a priest with no hands than with two hands.’ Fr Michael is a living embodiment that walking the path of Jesus Christ opens the possibility for God to take all that is destructive or broken, and transform and transfigure it, and bring a good that is far greater than what went before.

This is the redemption that we seek for our Communion. Therefore we must go forward, unafraid to bear our pain honestly as we keep journeying with Christ, and seeking his mind for us at each step of the way. This is our experience in Southern Africa. Looking back, we see God’s grace in the painful struggle against apartheid, that not only threatened to divide the church, but was for many a life and death matter. Against those experiences we find it hard to understand how human sexuality has become such a touchstone of faith, and mark of fellowship or enmity within the Anglican Communion.

Yet today, especially in what I have experienced within our Synod of Bishops, what counts is not the past we shared in adversity; but rather it is the continuing sensing of Christ in and among us, in the pain of our divisions, which holds us together, through our suffering – confident in the resurrection. And so we dare to join together in the prayer of St Paul, who said ‘I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in death if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead’ (Phil 3:10,11).

Another Anglican Microcosm

I would even go so far as to say we see parallels between ourselves as a Synod, and Archbishop Rowan Williams himself. In the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a focus of unity for the whole Communion – a role not of his choosing, but a heart-rending gift of the Communion as we constitute ourselves – Archbishop Rowan is in some senses called to bear the strains of the whole worldwide Communion within himself. We can only imagine, from our own experiences, the considerable personal cost this is to him, as he continues to ‘hold on’ as long as this call to do so is laid upon him. We in Southern Africa carry him in our heartfelt prayers, as he too awaits the outworking of resurrection in our suffering.

All this goes back to what I said earlier about Jesus being our standard. If in our Synod of Bishops we did not see Christ in one another – and if we did not agree on the central issues of who Jesus is and of the salvation that he brings – it would be another matter. But we do. And so our differing views on human sexuality therefore take second place alongside the strength of this overpowering conviction of Christ among us. As long as we know unity in Christ in this way, human sexuality is not, and cannot be, a church dividing issue.

This is why our Synod of Bishops said last September ‘we remain committed to upholding the bonds of unity with one another, as we journey together through the difficult questions that confront the worldwide Anglican Communion. Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not.’ Therefore our heartfelt prayer is that the Anglican Communion will also find ways of continuing to journey, even in pain, together – sharing in both suffering and resurrection hope.

Renewal in the Spirit

For us, keeping talking together, and, more importantly, worshipping together, reading Scripture together, praying together – in shared openness and vulnerability to God and to each other – has been the key to continuing to see Christ in one another. The possibility of continuing to share fellowship in Christ is the strength of the proposals of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pentecost letter, ‘Renewal in the Spirit’. Though these acknowledge the brokenness in our common life, and our damaged relationships – especially in our engagement with the wider ecumenical world – they nonetheless exclude no-one from our common counsels and our common life.

I firmly believe this is how it should be. Exclusion, severing ties and breaking contact can never be the best way forward. Surely we can never give up on each other – for God never gives up on any of us. This is assuredly the message of the penitent thief on the cross. To our last breath, God holds the door open to us – as individuals, and together as his people.

Archbishop Rowan speaks of us as not having yet fully received the Pentecost gift of mutual understanding for common mission. The Spirit’s gift of understanding is not only about each of us grasping God’s call on our own lives, it is also about recognising God at work in one another in our authentic mission work in differing contexts.

St Paul refers to this in writing in Chapter 12 of his First Letter to the Corinthians, about what it is to be the body of Christ. Considerable legitimate diversity under Christ is to be expected. ‘There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of tem in everyone’ (1 Cor 12:4-6). But this diversity can be hard to handle, as St Paul goes on to illustrate. The eye cannot comprehend what it is for the ear to hear, nor can the ear comprehend sight – but the one Spirit holds the different parts together, and enables them to work in harmony.

It is as if the breath of the Spirit has the capacity to translate the gospel of the Word made flesh, not only into the different languages of the first day of Pentecost, and all the languages of our twenty-first century world; the Spirit can also translate into every culture of our world – and between the inculturation of the gospel in different cultures. So, when we cannot understand each other, we must be sure that we have listened carefully to the still small voice of the Spirit. Is the Spirit speaking to each of us? Can we recognise the presence of Christ, which is the touchstone, the standard, of the true Spirit of God?

I am convinced that in our current situation within the Communion neither have we done, nor are we continuing to do, enough of this sort of listening to one another. We do not understand one another and one another’s contexts well enough, and we are not sufficiently sensitive to one another in the way we act. Autonomy has gone too far. I do not mean that we should seek a greater uniformity – I hope it is clear I am saying nothing of the sort. But we risk acting in ways that are so independent of one another that it becomes hard for us, and for outsiders, to recognise either a committed interdependent mutuality or a common Christian, Anglican, DNA running through our appropriately contextualised and differentiated ways of being.

Bishop Katharine, what I am going to say next is painful to me, and I fear it may also be to you – but I would rather say it to your face, than behind your back. And I shall be ready to hear from you also, for I cannot preach listening without doing listening. It sometimes seems to me that, though many have failed to listen adequately to the Spirit at work within The Episcopal Church, at the same time within your Province there has not been enough listening to the rest of the Anglican Communion. I had hoped that those of your Bishops who were at the Lambeth Conference would have grasped how sore and tender our common life is. I had hoped that even those who, after long reflection, are convinced that there is a case for the consecration of individuals in same sex partnerships, might nonetheless have seen how unhelpful it would be to the rest of us, for you to proceed as you have done.

There are times when it seems that your Province, or some within it, despite voicing concern for the rest of us, can nonetheless act in ways that communicate a measure of uncaring at the consequent difficulties for us. And such apparent lack of care for us increases the distress we feel. Much as we understand that you are in all sincerity attempting to discern the best way forward within your own mission context, the plea is: be sensitive to the rest of who are still drinking spiritual milk and are not yet eating solids.

Let me immediately add that, if there were certain others here, I would speak to them equally frankly. Cross border visitations and other moratoria violations have undermined not only your polity, but wider attempts to handle disagreements in a godly way before the face of the watching world. I will also add that, outside the scope of the moratoria, there are too many other shameful and painful ways that ‘gracious restraint’ has not been exercised by various different individuals and groups from all manner of perspectives. These too destructively exacerbate our attempts to live truly as a Communion, and contribute to the way that disagreements over human sexuality and its handling have come to dominate the life of the Anglican Communion to a disproportionate and debilitating extent. When I am interviewed, when I participate in radio phone-ins, no matter what the ostensible topic, again and again I find myself derailed by questions on this. I have to say this undermines our witness; dissipates energies that ought to be spent on the true priorities of mission; and distorts the focus and agenda of the Communion’s common life to an increasingly detrimental degree.

In these circumstances, I find myself returning to the words of St Paul, when he warned the Corinthians that not everything that is lawful is necessarily helpful (1 Cor 6:12). St Paul writes that even when we believe our understandings, our actions, to be justifiable and correct, we can – and sometimes should – choose not to pursue them, while that is to the greater benefit of the whole body of Christ. Yet this runs so counter to so much of today’s culture, in which we are far more conscious of our so-called rights, and our freedom to exercise them to the full.

So now I want to return, for the final section of my reflections, to the question of how the Spirit helps us critique, and baptise, culture.

Gospel Light on Cultural Practices of Handling Difference

Earlier today I talked

• about how all our various cultures must be open to both the judgement and the hope which the gospel brings;

• about how some cultural practices may more easily be aligned with the gospel than others;

• and about how nonetheless, all need to be ‘baptised’ and find new life within the perspectives of Jesus, his incarnation, cross and resurrection.

Let me now apply these principles to how we handle difference, and set limits of acceptable diversity, within our Communion.

I want to suggest that we have not adequately grasped how following the practices of parliaments and international organisations can exacerbate polarisation, adversarial attitudes, and ‘winner versus looser’ mindsets. What do I mean? When we propose motions, people are generally invited to speak ‘for’ and ‘against’. Of course, in debate people can range more widely and offer amendments; but a prior shape is imposed on our discourse both by the terms of the motion itself, and by our need to vote, yes or no – with the outcome being ‘success or defeat’.

Now, I am not saying we should completely stop doing this. But we should be far more aware of how polarising and oppositional such practices are; and how all of this feeds destructive attitudes of competitiveness, dominance and power, over and against one another, that then run through our common life.

Furthermore, I hope it is not too cynical to say it sometimes seems that the popularity of successive drafts of the Covenant has ebbed and flowed, among various groups, in ways that correlate closely with their expectation of whether a particular text can be used to deliver their preferred outcomes around human sexuality – and not because it will best help us all live the far broader life of witness and mission to which God calls us. Of course, no text will be perfect, because we are not perfect, but I think what we have is ‘good enough for now’. It is now up to us to trust God and trust each other, and cooperate in making it work well. Remember, we do have the opportunity to amend and improve it. And it does not exist in isolation, but sits alongside the Instruments of Communion with all their diffused responsibilities and structures that help shape our decisions. I do not see it as intended to centralise power or impose uniformity; and these should not be our goals, either.

When I read my Bible, competitiveness, dominance, power, polarisation and adversarial attitudes are not what I think of first when St Paul writes that ‘we have the mind of Christ’ when it comes to making spiritual judgements (1 Cor 2:16). I’m also conscious of our Godhead as Trinity being an amazing example of mutually enhancing diversity in unity – rather than difference becoming the first step to oppositional thinking.

Faced with all this, my reason for introducing the concept of Indaba into the Anglican Communion (and yes, I was the guilty party on the Lambeth Design Group!) was to help us reconnect with more gospel-shaped approaches, that better reflect theologies around the work of the Spirit, and the body of Christ. I believe it can powerfully enhance our traditional ways of doing business.

Indaba

Indaba is not about trying to make everyone into Amazulu, nor about transplanting elements from one culture into a completely foreign and inappropriate context. I also know that Indaba is far from perfect – it is not always conducted inclusively, and it can be abused by leaders intent on getting their own way. But at its best, there is a great deal that is readily susceptible to the sort of ‘baptism’ of which I spoke earlier. Let me explain:

• Scripture speaks of us living as the Body of Christ, as one, but with many different members (1 Cor 12:12).

• Indaba calls community members together to share news of developments or discuss concerns that affect the life of the community or individuals within it.

• Scripture says that God has so arranged the body that the members may have ‘the same care for one another’ (1 Cor 12:25).

• Indaba is predicated upon a strong sense of shared well-being, experienced on a reciprocal and mutually supportive basis.

• Scripture says that when one part of the body suffers, ‘all suffer with it’ (1 Cor 12:26).

• Indaba necessarily entails a degree of acknowledged interdependence, even vulnerability, towards one another.

• Scripture says that the members of the body that are ‘weaker are indispensable’ (1 Cor 12:22).

• Indaba says leaders must work for the well-being of the entire community, especially those in greatest need, and the ‘haves’ must provide for the ‘have nots’.

• Scripture says that the less respectable should be treated with greater respect (1 Cor 12:23).

• Indaba promotes an egalitarian ethos, in which everyone should be encouraged to grow into a productive and contributing member of the community.

• Scripture says that to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Cor 12:7).

• Indaba says debate is conducted through everyone being allowed to have their say, contributing their own perspective, so that the fullest picture can be drawn, and from it an outcome that is as consensual, and as ‘win-win’ as possible, can emerge.

• Scripture says that, notwithstanding all this diversity, when living as God intends, there need not, there should not, be dissension (1 Cor 12:25).

So, I hope you can see why I felt that there was much within Indaba that can help us – as the best of a cultural practice, appropriately baptised. Part of such baptism is the contextualisation within the kingdom of God. For Christians, it is a matter of relating and listening not just to one another, but individually and together to the empowering Spirit – the Spirit of wisdom, understanding and discernment. Perhaps a similar sort of listening was what happened at the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15, after which the apostles and elders wrote to the Gentile believers ‘it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us …’ (Acts 15:28). Let me add one further point.

Indaba is not an interminable talking shop. Indaba can and does impose sanctions, including the ultimate sanction of expulsion, on those who transgress the life of the community – but only after every other possible option is fully explored.

I hope you will see why I have drawn on indaba in my search for a more gospel-shaped space, a safer environment, for bringing and sharing concerns and differences, which we can use alongside the more adversarial cultures of debate which we have inherited and adopted, perhaps too unthinkingly. Engaging this way will help us get to that deeper level of mutual engagement, opening ourselves to recognise Christ at work within us, meeting in our pain at the foot of his cross, as we await the redemption of his resurrection hope.

And for this reason, the Continuing Indaba, together with the Bible in the Life of the Church project, and other shared Anglican initiatives must continue. This is the way to help us re-find one another, within the body of Christ to which we are called, and in which we are empowered, each as we need to be, by the Spirit, for our life of witness and mission.

May God bless us as we seek faithfully to follow his calling, and may he make us a blessing to others – for the building of his kingdom, and for the glory of his holy name. Amen.

Message to the Rt Revd Jean-Zaché Duracin, Episcopal Bishop of Haiti, Following the Devastating Earthquake

Issued 13 January 2010

Dear Bishop Jean-Zaché, dear brother in Christ

As news emerges of the devastating earthquake that has hit your country and its people, I am writing on behalf of the whole Anglican Church of Southern Africa to assure you of our urgent and heartfelt prayers at this traumatic time.

At Morning Prayer today, our Old Testament reading recounted the story of Cain who kills his brother Abel. Confronted by God, Cain responds, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' His intention is to claim that he is not responsible - and yet in today's increasingly interconnected world, it seems that God repeats his challenge to us all to shoulder the implications of acknowledging our lives are intimately bound up with those of every other human person, made in his image, across our planet. Therefore today, as we and others around the globe watch and wait for further information, we can do no other but hold you in our prayers, and ready ourselves to offer whatever support might be of most assistance. We particularly look to countries such as the United States of America to show the love of a neighbour in helping you not only materially, but in restoring dignity to those who are suffering devastation, and in supporting the long-term rebuilding of both infrastructure and human society.

Natural disasters such as this remind us of the fragility of life, and of how vulnerable we are to vast and powerful forces that are latent within our world. Humanity still has much to learn of how best to live in respectful harmony with our planet, especially in regions of particular risk. From building policies that take account of physical conditions, through to economic activities that affect our climate, we (and by this, I especially mean those who enjoy political and economic power and influence) have no honourable option but to work always to be part of the solution, not part of the problem - and must take particular account of the poorest and most vulnerable who so often bear the brunt in times of crisis.

My dear brothers and sisters in Haiti, as I sit in shock before TV pictures that are beginning to emerge, my prayer in this season of Epiphany is that the loving compassion and care of God will be made manifest despite and through the pain and suffering that afflicts you. Our Lord counsels us to grieve with those who grieve, but also not to lose hope, knowing that in all things the One who shines an inextinguishable light into every darkness both desires and wills to act redemptively. May you know the fullness of these, his promises, in the days and weeks ahead.

Issued by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town

Inquiries: Cynthia Michaels on 021-763-1320 (office hours)

To the People of God – To the Laos

August 2008

Dear People of God

It is good to be home! Our dog, Toffee, is completely delighted that Lungi and I are back from the Lambeth Conference, and greets us with particular enthusiasm each morning!

My heart and mind are still overflowing with memories of our time in Canterbury, where we exchanged Cape Town’s cold wet winter for hot summer weather. I think of the beauty of the Cathedral; and the wonderfully uplifting worship we enjoyed there and in the ‘Big Tent’ on the university campus where we were based. Here, as all of us, bishops and spouses together, shared in morning Eucharists and evening prayers led by the various Provinces, we were drawn closer to God and one another, even in tense moments: the morning we were to discuss human sexuality, the service was infused with a profound sense of the Lord’s grace and love among us. I think too of the long, but inspiring, day in London, beginning with a walk of witness together with other religious leaders, highlighting the Millennium Development goals and calling on world leaders to meet them, and to form better partnerships with faith communities for overcoming poverty. After lunch in the beautiful grounds of Lambeth Palace, the home of Archbishop Rowan and Jane Williams, we then went to a Buckingham Palace tea party hosted by Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip – an event we shall never forget!

But when I look back, I realise that most of all Lambeth was about relationships – with Jesus, with one another in Christ, and with the world.

From beginning to end, Jesus as Saviour, incarnate in our contexts, was at the very heart of our time together. We started our time together with a wonderful 3-day retreat led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, where he asked us to consider what it means for every believer to be called to be a place where God’s Son is revealed to others. He challenged us to reflect on where we find Jesus revealed, whether through others, through encounters and conversations and circumstances. Many of us were nervous, defensive, or even a bit aggressive, about the disagreements within the Anglican Communion. Our retreat helped us to start by ‘finding ourselves’ in Jesus Christ, and so to be ready to find one another, as brothers and sisters also in Jesus Christ.

We then moved from Retreat to Conference. After Eucharist and breakfast, each day proceeded with Bible Studies in which the same eight of us looked at John’s Gospel, focussing on the person of Jesus, and his ‘I am’ sayings – I am the bread of life; the light of the world; the gate for the sheep; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth and the life; the true vine. These Bible Studies were marvellous. As we met morning by morning we were surprised with joy and delight at the extent to which we found Christ in one another, and found one another in Christ.

We were very different in our backgrounds and views, but we learnt to share our faith journeys, the joys and pains of ministry, and our hopes and fears for the Anglican Communion, with ever deepening trust and honesty, openness and vulnerability. It was intensely moving to build relationships in Christ that were far more profound than the differences with which we find ourselves labelled.

After a coffee break our Indaba groups, each comprising five Bible Study Groups, then tackled various aspects of Anglican Identity, and of Equipping Bishops as Leaders in Mission – the twin themes of the Conference. These too became places of deep trust, even as we exchanged very divided opinions and sharp disagreements – but we learnt we could be honest, and held in love and respect by one another. Some people were afraid the Indaba approach was a tactic for avoiding difficult questions. But the reverse was true. We created a safe space where everyone could have their say. We could peel the layers off the onions, so to speak, getting beneath the surface, and grappling with what really mattered. Some members of The Episcopal Church (TEC) in my indaba group, for example, discovered how ignorant they were of the situations in other parts of the world, and of how their actions affected the lives of Bishops and ordinary Christians far away. Other Bishops came to realise that the accounts of the American church that are beamed round the world on television and internet are often not accurate, and certainly don’t tell the whole story.

We also enjoyed many other opportunities to encounter one another and exchange views on important subjects: through optional afternoon seminars on a huge range of topics, through meetings with inspiring speakers, even through conversations in queues at mealtimes!

What then, did we achieve out of all this? Well, one thing we did not do was produce reports and recommendations that were put up for debate and vote, as past Conferences have done. Those of us on the Conference Design Group were conscious that this time we needed something different. The problem with voting is that it means having to take sides, yes or no, for or against, and there has been far too much taking sides, or trying to force people to take sides, within Anglicanism in the last few years. This approach also privileged those who were fluent in English, and practiced and confident at taking the microphone and addressing huge plenary sessions.

For this meeting of the Lambeth Conference, we felt we most needed an opportunity to involve everyone in exploring deeply together both the life of faith to which we are called, and called as leaders of the Anglican Church, and how we are to share that faith through participating in God’s mission to his world. These two objective became encapsulated in our twin themes I’ve already mentioned, of Anglican identity and Bishops as leaders in mission, and we structured the programme far more around small groups, Bible Studies and Indabas – acknowledging also that at previous Lambeth Conferences bishops themselves had generally referred to the fellowship they shared in small groups as what they had valued most.

I think that, to a very considerable extent, we achieved our objective of deep exploration together. What we concluded was this: we do have big differences, and we don’t easily know how to deal with them – but, more than this, we all belong to Jesus Christ, and therefore we belong to each other, and we must, we must, keep on debating and discussing, in mutual care, respect and trust. As several bishops said, the indaba must go on! Of course, it will not be easy. Some bishops stayed away, and we were diminished by their absence. Their perspective would have enriched our sharing, and challenged us more sharply over our disagreements, forcing us to draw even more deeply on the reserves of our common life in Christ.

Therefore, our commitment – as we said in the ‘Reflections’ document that recorded our discussions – is that we should now ‘build bridges, to look for opportunities to share with them the experience we have had in Canterbury and to find ways of moving forward together in our witness to the Lord Jesus Christ,’ and that in the interim, the recommendations of the Windsor report must be upheld – that is, moratoria on the ordination of persons living in a same gender union to the episcopate, on the blessing of same-sex unions, and on cross-border incursions by bishops. In the Reflections, it is suggested that perhaps this might be seen as a ‘season of gracious restraint’. And in the meantime, debate and discussion around these questions will continue – including within our own Province.

At the level of Communion, we will continue to work with the Windsor Report, the draft Covenant, a Pastoral Forum, a possible gathering of the Primates next February, and the planned meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council next July. And we will aim to do so with generosity of spirit. Not everyone is going to agree – but I think for the great majority of us at Lambeth, what matters is relationship more than rules, and this is summed up in our affirmation that ‘The Lord Jesus Christ is the centre of our common life.’

And I hope that we will also take some of these lessons of the Lambeth Conference into the life of this Province and its Dioceses too – especially what we learnt from the indaba processes, and how we must not just be driven by agendas and decisions and outcomes. We will take this to heart at the Synod of Bishops and Provincial Standing Committee meeting in September. Please pray for us as we take all this forward.

More than this, every one of us needs to be conscious of building our lives on our relationship with Jesus, and the relationship that we have with others in him, and in sharing his gospel with his world. This must be the engine of our lives. If we go forward on this basis, the Lambeth Conference was surely a success.

From a personal point of view, it was particularly good to meet my colleagues from the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, CAPA, many of them for the first time, and begin building relationships with them. Lungi too made many new friends and shared deeply through the Spouses’ Conference, where they also spent a significant and intensely moving time together. They committed themselves to plant a tree each, on their return home, so it might be a prayerful reminder of their rootedness and connectedness – a rootedness and connectedness to one another both through Jesus, and through each being part of God’s creation. They also decided that every spouse will maintain a relationship with one other spouse from somewhere else in the Communion; and that the spouses of our Province should also meet together annually. In addition, they will each take up the challenge to empower and encourage two other women, in order that these in turn can empower and encourage others in witnessing positively to Christ and in community building, as tangible signs of participating in God’s mission, wherever we find ourselves.

There is so much more I could say about our time in Canterbury. Within our discussions, the questions of poverty, of the environment and climate change, of the co-epidemic of TB and HIV and AIDS, and of malaria, were absolutely vital and should not be overshadowed by concerns about human sexuality. Bishops and spouses also grappled together with the hard issues of abuse, especially abuse against women and children, that permeate all our societies and churches. You can read about these, and everything else we considered, in the Reflections document, which is available on-line at http://www.lambethconference.org/vault/Reflections_Document_(final).pdf.

Southern Africa was well represented at the Conference. Congratulations to Bishop Dinis Sengulane, who was the longest serving Bishop present – at his fourth Conference! Our Province, guided by Bishop Merwyn Castle, our liaison bishop for liturgical matters, led Evening Prayer on one occasion, with a good multi-lingual service featuring English, isiXhosa and Afrikaans (though I acknowledge that it was more ‘South’ than truly ‘Southern’ African, with apologies to Dioceses in Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and St Helena). Several of our bishops also participated in a Sunday service at St Dunstan’s, Canterbury, which was broadcast live on BBC radio (http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/sunday_worship/ and link to 27 July), and at which Archbishop Rowan Williams preached the sermon (http://www.lambethconference.org/daily/news.cfm/2008/7/28/ACNS4477). I must say that in this, his retreat homilies, his Presidential Addresses, his other sermons, and in the way he led us, he demonstrated his remarkable gifts – not only as a great theologian and teacher and pastor, all that a bishop should be, but as a humble man of great prayer, profound spiritual depths, and a radical and unconditional commitment to personal holiness of life. We are more than blessed to have him as our Archbishop of Canterbury. Do keep him (and Jane who gives him marvellous support and who is a significant Christian leader in her own right), fervently in your prayers, for the times ahead will continue to be more than challenging.

All in all, it was an unforgettable three weeks, though which the Lord blessed us all richly, as we had hoped, and in ways we could never have imagined. Thank you for your prayers – we were very conscious of being carried by the intercessions of God’s faithful people all around the world, as we met.

Let me end this long, long letter (for once the subject warrants it!), with an apology to all those whose nerves were, rightly, jarred by our hybrid mix of Latin and Greek in entitling these ‘Ad Laos’! As you will see, we have amended this slightly, but I do want to retain the word ‘Laos’, as it is used so beautifully in Scripture, for example, when Peter writes of us being ‘God’s own people’ or, in other translations, ‘a people for his own possession’ (1 Pet 2:9). Let us never forget that this is who we are.

And finally, I pass on greetings to you all from our former Archbishop, Philip Russell, who telephoned me before I set off for Lambeth with words of encouragement, especially about the role that we, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, are called to play as reconciler, given our own profound experiences of the God who reconciles.

Yours in the service of Christ

+Thabo Cape Town